Florence is a city of class, culture, and sophistication. Not only is it beautiful geographically... surrounded by mountains and boasting the fast flowing Arno river... but it is also a city that is infused with money. You won’t find the overstuffed city center shops like the ones in Naples.... they’ve all been replaced by Tiffanys, Armani, Prada, and the other high cost brand name retailers. And the American tourists were everywhere! All around the city we heard American English... a key indicator that we were back on the "Western Europe tourist circuit" – something we’d been away from for quite some time.
Despite the high cost, our plan was to stay four nights in Florence... using it as a base for possible "day trips" to Pisa and/or Sienna if we felt we had seen enough of "Firenze" (the local name for Florence.) The highlight of the city must be the gorgeous Duomo Cathedral which Mark can not stop raving about. He’s right... it is beautiful. The pink and green marble facade is like nothing we’ve seen before – pictures can’t do it justice. It’s one of the world’s "must sees."
We also visited the Uffizi gallery which is home to the most important collection of Italian art in the world. In addition to the numerous rooms full of paintings from the masters, the hallways are lined with Roman sculptures dating from 2500 years ago which continue to amaze, despite the fact that we’ve already seen quite a bit of Roman art. Also visually stunning was the view from our small guest house. From our window, we could look out over the Ponte Vecchio - the famous 14th century bridge which now houses gold and silver jewelry shops.
After three days of wandering the city and doing a bit of Christmas shopping, we were ready for a day trip to Pisa. The home of the leaning tower is only an hour or so from Florence by train, so we headed to the station only to discover that there were exceptionally long lines at the ticket counters and none of the automated ticket machines were taking cash or cards. It all seemed rather strange to me – after all, we had arrived in Florence by train and everything seemed to be running efficiently then. Reluctantly, we took our place in the queue.
Now, you must remember that Italy (generally speaking) is a country that has absolutely no respect whatsoever for lines and queuing etiquette... which irritates my sensible, British husband to the extreme. It really wasn’t that bad. There was a fair amount of pushing in, elbowing, and people telling other people what to do... but the most outrageous violation was a nun (or someone who was dressed as a nun) who pushed right in at the front of the line not once... but TWICE. The man who’s turn it actually was turned red and was irate... but he must have been Catholic because, with the exception of a few "typically Italian hand gestures,".... he kept his temper pretty well.
After about an hour and 15 minutes we finally made our way to the counter. Mark ordered up two round trips to Pisa and it was only then that we discovered that our wait had been for nothing. There were no trains going to Pisa that day due to a train strike. Instead, we bought our tickets for the following morning to Venice (it was just a one day strike, you see) and headed back into Florence for the afternoon.
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